The Following of Christ, in Four Books, by Thomas a Kempis: Translated from the Original Latin by the Rt. Rev. R. Challoner

H. Fitzpatrick. Good. 1803 H. Fitzpatrick (Dublin, Ireland), 3 5/8 x 4 1/2 inches tall red full leather bound, gilt-ruled boards, gilt lettering to spine, marbled endpapers, gilt dentelles framing marbled pastedowns, [4], 388 pp. Moderate to heavy soiling, rubbing and edgewear to covers. Cracking to leather at exterior hinges and spine, and chipping to lower spine cap. Quarter-inch abrasion to lower front cover. All four tips bumped.Light soiling to endpapers. 1842 prior owner name to blank front free-endpaper, and 1809 prior owner notation regarding provenance to blank verso of marbled rear free-endpaper. Mild soiling to title page, with a half-inch stain to the lower margin. Otherwise, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked - of this rare early nineteenth century Irish imprint. Not in OCLC. ~SSS~ [1.0P] A rare 1803 Dublin imprint of the acclaimed Challoner English translation of the Christian devotional classic, The Imitation of Christ. Richard Challoner (1691-1781) was an English Roman Catholic bishop, and a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the eighteenth century. He is perhaps most famous for his revision of the Douay Rheims translation of the Bible. He spent a quarter-century at the English College at Douai (France), first as student, then as professor, and finally as vice-president of the university. In 1730 he returned to England, where he entered the work of the ministry despite the penal laws still in effect. He published a large number of works in English, intending to make the classics of spirituality accessible to Catholics, including this, De Imitatione Christi, in 1737 (which he entitled 'The Following of Christ'). De Imitatione was written by Catholic monk Thomas Kempis (circa 1380-1471), as four separate books completed between 1420 and 1427, at Mount Saint Agnes monastery, in the town of Windesheim, located in what is now the Netherlands. He wrote these works for the instruction of novices of his Augustinian monastic order.